"He was a magnificent candidate," Brooks said ruefully, "but a shocking Member. I am afraid what I heard in the City the other day must have some truth in it. They say that he only wanted to be able to write M.P. after his name for this last session to get on the board of two new companies. He will never sit for Medchester again."
"He was at the hotel the other day, wasn't he?" Mary asked, "with you and uncle? What has he to say for himself?"
"Well, he shelters himself behind the old fudge about duty to his Party," Brooks answered. "You see the Liberals only just scraped in last election because of the war scandals, and their majority is too small for them to care about any of the rank and file introducing any disputative measures. Still that scarcely affects the question. He won his seat on certain definite pledges, and if he persists in his present attitude, we shall ask him at once to resign."
You still keep up your interest in Medchester, then?"
"Why, yes!" he answered. "Between ourselves, if I could choose, I would rather, when the time comes, stand for Medchester than anywhere."
"I am glad! I should like to see you Member for Medchester. Do you know, even now, although I am so happy, I cannot think about the last few months there without a shudder. It seemed to me that things were getting worse and worse. The people's faces haunt me sometimes."
He looked up at her sympathetically.
"If you have once lived with them," he said, "once really understood, you never can forget. You can travel or amuse yourself in any way, but their faces are always coming before you, their voices seem always in your ears. It is the one eternal sadness of life. And the strangest part of it is, that just as you who have once really understood can never forget, so it is the most difficult thing in the world to make those people understand who have not themselves lived and toiled amongst them. It is a cry which you cannot translate, but if once you have heard it, it will follow you from the earth to the stars."
"You too, then," she said, "have some of the old aim at heart. You are not going to immerse yourself wholly in politics?"
"My studies," he said, "will be in life. It is not from books that I hope to gain experience. I want to get a little nearer to the heart of the thing. You and I may easily come across one another, even in this great city."